My contribution, hope it helps :
Rebecca, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to see an MEP with an open mind.
Here's my two pennarth (actually, more than two pennarth, more like a couple of bob's worth, it's hard to stop evangelising about something that's changed my life) :
* While it is clear that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than tobacco, nicotine does have some negative health effects, but the long term health impacts of using e-cigarettes are currently unknown;
The general consensus is that e-cigarettes are not just far less harmful, they're probably in excess of 99% less harmful. Maybe about as dangerous as a cup of tea.
* Expanding on the previous point, it may be appropriate to require e-cigarettes to come with a general health warning such as "may damage your health" until evidence is available to make a more precise warning;
The danger of this is that if you tell people who already smoke that e-cigarettes may damage your health, you're effectively telling them that there's no point in switching, as they're already using a nicotine delivery system (analogue cigarettes) that harms them anyway. There's a very real possiblity that you'll discourage the very people you're trying to reach.
* There are currently no standards in relation to the quality and safety of e-cigarettes, something which needs to be rectified for reasons of consumer protection;
As others have said, e-cigarettes are already covered by Trading Standards, in much the same way as bleach and other household items are covered.
* The aim of regulation should be to keep e-cigarettes available as a harm reduction tool for adult smokers,
Agreed.
* while taking every precaution to ensure their use does not "renormalise" smoking and that they are not marketed in a way that broadens their appeal to non-smokers, especially young people.
The downside of this approach is that you're effectively pushing ex-smokers who now vape to the fringes. This is exactly the opposite of what (I believe) you should be doing. What (I believe) you should be considering is NORMALISING vaping. By doing that you'll help current smokers to see that vaping is a socially acceptable activity. As more and more people begin to vape, those people who, like myself, didn't want to quit the pleasures of nicotine but wanted the smoking monkey off my back will see that they'll achieve public approval instead of the sneers and fake coughs that us vapers are currently subjected to by ignorant anti-smokers and smokers alike.
I'm probably not phrasing that very well. Let me try to say it another way.
If you normalise vaping, you're more likely to get current smokers to make the switch. By denormalising it, you're just giving the less adventurous smokers another reason to not try these newfangled devices.
* it may be necessary to subject e-cigarettes to marketing restrictions such as minimum age of purchase requirements,
Agreed, makes sense.
* forbidding free samples or below cost pricing,
This doesn't, you want to encourage people to make the switch, not discourage it.
* a ban on characterising flavours (e.g. chocolate)
This would be a terrible mistake. Once that I'd discovered vaping could genuinely take the place of smoking for me, the very first thing I did was go on a journey to find out exactly what flavours I could vape all day. Like other users here have said, it doesn't take long for your sense of taste to come back when you stop smoking and it was the very variety of different flavours that encouraged me to invest money in vaping instead of smoking. I've just checked my tackle box, which holds the majority of my vaping gear, and I'm the proud (and probably slightly insane) owner of some 122 different flavours. Now, most folks won't need that many, however I was determined that vaping is going to work for me, and fiddling with receipes is one of the things that help.
* Following on from the previous point, e-cigarettes used in public places where smoking is forbidden or in front of children would also contribute to "renormalisation", so steps should be taken to avoid this, for example restricting the use of e-cigarettes in public places.
If you do this, you're placing barriers in the way of the very people you're trying to save. One of the many advantages of taking up vaping instead of smoking was that I'm now able to enjoy a pint and a puff in my local pub again, without standing out in the cold (of which we've had far too much this winter). Like many smokers, there was little I enjoyed more than "a fag and a pint", and the smoking ban pretty much put a stop to that, indeed I can count on two hands how many times my partner and I went to the pub after the ban, before we took up vaping. Since discovering e-cigarettes we've found that we're able to enjoy our drinks again without dreading the trip to stand outside the door. If you renormalise vaping, then you can be sure that others will feel the same way and this can only be a good thing for our flagging pub trade.
In the end, you'll do what you feel you should do, however I hope that you'll consider some of the things that vapers have been trying to tell you. We're not saying these things because we resist change, if we did, we wouldn't have taken up vaping in the first place, instead we would have stuck to burning tobacco. E-cigarettes have proven phenomenally effective at removing smoking from the lives of so many people who enjoy using nicotine. Research has shown that they're probably AT LEAST 50% effective, some estimates suggest that they can be up to 80% effective although IMO that's probably a little high. I can tell you that of the 4 people I've encouraged to switch, 3 of them have done so.
The TPD's stated aim is to reduce smoking levels by 2%. JUST two percent! This is such a colossal expenditure for such a small gain. If vaping were properly encouraged by the EU, instead of controlled into obscurity, you have a chance to convert that paltry 2% to 50%, all at no cost to the NHS. I'll bet in your wildest dreams, you never thought that was a realistic goal.
As of the year 2000 there were estimated to be 1.2 billion smokers in the world. Imagine if half of those 1.2 billion people switched to vaping, something I believe entirely possible if the EU embraces e-cigarettes properly. I'm sure many other countries would soon follow suit and you'd quite likely have a chance of, instead of helping 24 million smokers to quit the hard way, to help 600 million quit the easy way.
I am not affiliated with the vaping, smoking or pharma industries, just an extremely relieved user of e-cigarettes (26mg).
